


We Close Our Eyes

by alex_emsworth



Category: Merry (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 04:19:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1414873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_emsworth/pseuds/alex_emsworth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Couldn’t sleep. Want some?” He aims the bottle of Jack Daniel’s at Tetsu, too tired to imagine how it must look. He feels so small in comparison, but the desire to disappear doesn’t come for once, and he bravely holds his ground.</p><p>And then happens what he so dreaded and ached for: Tetsu shrugs and closes the door behind him with a gentle click to take the whiskey from Gara’s hand and sit on the couch next to him, even if he’s still sprawled on the floor, “Why not.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Close Our Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> To my beautiful girlfriend, who has introduced me to Merry in the first place.  
> Happy birthday, love.
> 
> Nero is a guest star and he rocks. 

_(And if you think I'm worth it, and if you think it's not too late,  
We might start falling — if we don't try to hard, we might start falling in love)_

There’s a place where all thoughts go when darkness falls, along with the souls of their owners when they fall asleep, but there are as well nights on which the thoughts die out with the last streaks of light, but there is no sleep to take the soul away to dwell someplace where the darkness has no power, and the soul gets trapped between the endless, lifeless moments of the un-life, dissolved and hurt, and it seeks companionship of the darkest thoughts instead, their half-formed ghosts abiding in every feathery whisper of the smallest of hours, their razors cutting deep, gushing wounds in both reality and the hidden, most vulnerable parts of consciousness.

The night bleeds, and Gara bleeds with it without blood, his ink no longer visible on paper but all too evident on his bony, ivory hands that all but glow in the faint moonlight enough to cast violent shadows; each and every night like this is a torture, and on each and every night like this he thinks that he’s never been this close to the edge before, but it’s always a lie, for he’s been to the edge and over it, and every second he spends in his room ringing with silence drains life out of him, burning him from the inside until he finally closes his eyes, his slumber nothing but dwelling between life and death. 

Until another day comes to surprise him back into living, makes him cast aside the memories of his worst nightmares that he didn’t even dream, and slip out of his apartment to battle with a whole other set of demons to wax poetry out of what so mercifully has let him alone for even so long.

It never gets better, for there is noting to fill the aching void that only gets deeper with the years; it only slows down to form the illusion of normality that’s never there either: the only thing he can do is wait it out, and so he waits, a week, a month, however long before the ghost he sees in the mirror starts to look more human again.

He despises his insomnia that’s such a frequent guest in his life once autumn claims its rights on the world, and tries to hide it from anyone close enough to him, ashamed of himself for no reason other than his own helplessness, but his eyes give him away; a sleepless week turns him into a suspicious robot, paranoid in his all-consuming drive to hide the evidence of his misfortune: too bad that on days like these all he wants is someone to share the middle of the night with, even if he refuses to acknowledge a fact so simple as that.

There is a day when Gara finds his way back to the studio when everyone else has left, spilling pointless excuses before the security guard that’s not even interested in them. This is his last resort: he craves the silence, and the light, and the serenity of the small place where they make music, for it’s bound to give him strength — and doesn’t make him so sick as the walls of his own apartment do. There are no windows, and the nightfall is marked only by the ticking of a solitary clock on the wall — for some time he toys with the idea that if he can hide from the night under the buzzing light of the studio, it would not reach him, but his voluntary confinement proves him wrong all too soon, and he, outraged, hides even from the clock.

He cannot even work; because of the light there are bright dots dancing before his eyes, and the walls seem alien and unwelcoming, but he dares not leave or turn the light off, resorting to walking in circles, reciting children’s songs and counting moments away in his head, conversing without words with the instruments, desiring to dissolve in the dead air, hide in a corner, scream until his voice dies out, but none of it he can afford; his whole body aches with suppressed motion, and it feels alien, too. 

For a night he doesn’t want to be himself anymore, and he wants so badly to savor his misery all the same: he knows himself all too well, and he wishes to be someone else so that he would be able to laugh at his own pathetic struggles. There was a time when he derived his strength from this, devoured his helplessness and hurt and made them into weapons of his own, but it has long passed, leaving him with no other option but to wait until the pain he feels dulls, until he doesn’t need to drown the voices of darkness in whatever he chooses to be his medicine for the night.

The clock in the control room tells him it’s almost ten: the night is still so young, and he hates it all with a burning passion, the clock and the brownish walls, and the countless buttons of the mixing console, and he retreats back to the studio, blaming himself for the folly of the idea of getting out of it in the first place. He drops his body between the couch and the coffee table that aren’t supposed to be there, but were brought in upon his insistence; he isn’t supposed to be there either, but he is, and he drinks to it straight from the bottle of whiskey, its pleasantly bitter taste another painful jolt of awareness.

His eyes slide from side to side, and he listens to the silence, imperfect, still alive, no matter how soundproof the room shall be, for it pulsates, and wails, and his own heart beats all too loud, and the time stops, freezing for him, and nothing ever changes as he breathes deeply and tries to convince himself to stand up and go out for a smoke; the monotonous timelessness enchants him somehow, and the world seems full of terrors outside — something that’s out of a child’s fantasy, not the life of a 30-year-old man, but it’s enough to keep him in place, and he stays motionless on the floor, his gaze fixed on something that isn’t even there.

Another hour passes, each minute a needle in his spine, his vision milky and thoughts in disarray; when he hears steps not too far away, he takes them for another trick his imagination is playing on him, but the sound does not go away, only grows stronger, its reality the sharpest knife parting the matter of the space around him, but he’s too tired and indifferent by then to come up with an action appropriate in a situation like this: it feels so surreal that for a moment he thinks that he’s really part of the room, as much as the table behind which he makes no attempts to hide.

And then the door opens — slowly, warily, and a voice calling his name makes Gara open his eyes again to come to the surface of reality from his borderline state of not-being — but there is another moment before he fixes his bloodshot eyes on the intruder.

“Forgot my phone,” Tetsu explains, even though he wasn’t asked to; he is hesitant to enter, lingers in the door frame, his fingers tracing its uneven wooden texture, unsure if he’s walked in on something he wasn’t supposed to, and all of it looks like the cruelest joke the universe could ever choose to play on him.

More than anything he wants to ask Tetsu what was so important about his phone that he had to go through the trouble of retrieving it in the middle of the night, but doesn’t: it’s bad enough as it is, without him knowing whose call it is that Tetsu is waiting for. His own fingers hurt as he clutches the neck of the angular bottle in order to suppress the waves of nauseating jealousy he isn’t meant to feel. Instead, he explains himself, too, answering the unasked question in Tetsu’s eyes he still refuses to meet; his voice breaks at the end of each of his short phrases, but it’s the best he can manage.

“Couldn’t sleep. Want some?” He aims the bottle of Jack Daniel’s at Tetsu, too tired to imagine how it must look. He feels so small in comparison, but the desire to disappear doesn’t come for once, and he bravely holds his ground.

And then happens what he so dreaded and ached for: Tetsu shrugs and closes the door behind him with a gentle click to take the whiskey from Gara’s hand and sit on the couch next to him, even if he’s still sprawled on the floor, “Why not.”

He stays, and it’s so beautiful in its simplicity, for they do not owe each other anything between the slowly dwelling minutes and the swings at the bottle that seems to last for eternity, Gara on the floor, his back to Tetsu, the bassist himself stretched out on the old red couch that looks twice as small as him, facing the ceiling. An hour passes, and then another, and nothing changes in the room where they try to keep the silence at bay with making as little noise as they can, and the night goes on without them noticing.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be tonight?” Gara asks when it’s well past midnight, and Tetsu’s “No” is really more than he wanted to hear, laconic and serene and, above all, sincere.

He steals a glance of him then — laying down, the back of his right hand shielding his eyes from the prying light, his left hand brushing ever so slightly against Gara’s shoulder, still holding the same old, more than half-empty bottle that’s threatening to slip out of his fingers, — all of it too striking, and Gara stares at him shamelessly, taking advantage of the fact that Tetsu cannot see him at all, tracks the lines of his bones down his neck, sneaking a peek into the dark blue shirt that’s almost black and suits him so, its two top buttons open. Even if it’s only liquor speaking in him, this is the sight he wants to remember, and for an instance his over-awareness does him a favor: his eyes moving all but wildly, he tries to take in as much as he can, gently removing the bottle that’s gotten warm from Tetsu’s body heat from his long fingers, placing it on the table, to no reaction from the bassist but a frown that Gara not so much sees as feels, to the point where it’s erotic. He wants to look away, knowing that he’s overstepping all possible boundaries now, but doesn’t — he can’t even breathe properly, holding the air inside for as long as he is able to manage, all not to trouble Tetsu’s fragile peace as he drifts off to sleep — one of them has to sleep, he figures, and he doesn’t blame Tetsu for it, for he’s already done enough for him when he chose to stay, deciphering Gara’s wordless plea.

He doesn’t want to muse on how well Tetsu has always gotten his implications and hints on matters like this, and how he has always failed to get the most important one, and shies the noisy thoughts away — it’s terrible enough with Gara sitting so close to him, trying to catch his breath, watching him like a creep, he doesn’t need more images of what can never be float before his eyes.

Tetsu’s fingers twitch a little as an uneven, restless sleep takes him away, not unlike a cat clawing its paw trying to catch bugs in its sleep, and Gara suddenly feels cold and ashamed as his pointless, all-consuming feeling of impotent, helpless loneliness gets hold of him, and all that he thought they’ve chased away comes back to haunt him. He shudders and struggles to stand up, his legs far from obedient after all that time of no movement, but he swallows back down all his curses and stumbles to the control room to get his leather jacket. He wants to smoke so badly to calm his nerves, but his hands are shaking so violently that he doubts it that he would be able to even light the cigarette, and he wouldn’t dare leave Tetsu here in the dead of the night alone, so he slides back quietly through the door and sits down before him again, placing the jacket over Tetsu’s angular, bony shoulders with as much care as he can master. He’s never asked for a burden so heavy, and the sheer triviality of the scene disgusts him, but there’s nothing he can do at this point but surrender to the force of the circumstances that is so much stronger than him; as he watches Tetsu shift his position a little under the weight of the leather and then turn to his side, facing him, Gara’s heart skips a beat or two as he realizes just how close he is to being discovered, but the disaster never comes. 

To no success he tries to convince himself that it’s all right, that if he has managed to survive so many years next to Tetsu without giving himself away, he can manage to go through this night unharmed, too — this very night can be what finally breaks him. 

He doesn’t think and he thinks too much, and the only thought left in him is how much he wants to wrap Tetsu in something that’s his to hide him from his own demons, and how little he can really do; his love for him is just like that, too — something so profound and dark that he will never be able to express with all his songs and his endless words that always pale in comparison with the bottomless well that’s his aching, homeless heart. He tried to, and failed, for his message never got through — or was discarded without him knowing, his bitter self and his imperfect, hesitant and vulnerable love unnecessary and useless; he tried to fight it, too, but it only did more harm; he tried to live with it, and he thought he might have succeeded at last, only to let Tetsu come and strip him of all his resistance again.

There is nothing for him to lose, he figures, when his life is already coming apart at the seams, and he runs his index finger down Tetsu’s slightly protruding vein that’s a little too evident against his pale skin on the arm that dangles from the side of the couch, and then locks his fingers with Tetsu’s cold and calloused ones, intertwining them to keep them both safe — but from what, he cannot say. 

It feels almost too good to be true, and he lets the illusion of Tetsu’s brief squeezing his hand in response take him away for the rest of the dying night.

—

When Nero comes to the studio in the morning, he finds Gara cuddled up on one of the big leather chairs in the control room, his knees pulled up to his chest. He almost doesn’t register his presence at all, for the vocalist is dead silent, motionless, looking much like a ghost, but when Nero reaches out to open the door to the studio to check if someone’s there before him, his hand freezes with the hiss of Gara’s voice telling him not to.

“Tetsu’s there,” he states, “asleep.” His short, cut-out words betray his own lack of sleep all too well, but Nero isn’t going to comment on that, just as he chooses not to ask anything regarding the way Tetsu has ended up sleeping anywhere but his home, with Gara his silent guard. With Gara it’s always a long story he never cares to tell, and Nero is already feeling a severe migraine crawl up on him without his help.

“You never went home, didn’t you?” He asks — not Gara but the air, and even the air is more cooperative at this point. This isn’t a very exciting routine, but he isn’t comfortable with silence either, and Gara will have to put up with it for a while.

“Got anything done?” He tries again, booting up his laptop and squinting reflexively when the black monitor comes alive, its artificial glow reflecting in Nero’s glasses. 

Gara shrugs: _Not really._ He’s watching Nero’s every move, and if the latter weren’t so familiar with Gara’s ways of being, he would have assumed that he was stabbing his back with daggers of hate, but that is far from truth; Nero’s own enthusiasm has dulled — they’re all tired, and the production is going so slowly he almost resents it. He is very, very tired indeed, and thinks that maybe it’s time to withdraw from his fruitless attempts on understanding what’s going on in Gara’s head and consequently trying to make his life better — which actually means making everybody else’s lives easier. Maybe, he figures, it’s time to give up; maybe it’s too late anyway, but his toying with this thought is abruptly stopped when the door he was so shamelessly prohibited to touch opens from the inside — all to reveal the grim figure of Tetsu’s, who squints at the electric light and is too jaded to be surprised at Nero’s being there, no matter how hard he tries to be.

Nero murmurs a “Morning,” studying Tetsu’s face; there was a time when they experimented with wearing black eyeliner and whatnot, and the up-to-date version of Tetsu wouldn’t even need that: today he’s effortlessly looking like a goth kid’s idol, tall, hunched up, his skin with a shade of grayish green to it, black circles under his eyes too evident. He looks like someone has just dug him up from a grave, and he’s not particularly happy with this turn of events in his afterlife, and the drummer almost comes up with a joke on that, but it takes him only a second to think better of it. He feels bad for him, but does not say anything: he is but a mere observer.

It takes him some time to realize that the formless thing that Tetsu is holding in his hands is Gara’s jacket, and the said realization strikes him only when the black bulk gets transferred to the vocalist’s own hands with a “Thank you,” followed by information that seems irrelevant at first — a bunch of words slammed together, no more. But then: Tetsu is going out to get coffee, and Nero has to shake his head no to his offer to bring him some, too, but Gara makes a tremendous effort to smile, which turns out about as charming as a heartfelt grimace of pain, but nevertheless: Gara smiles, and he wants whatever Tetsu has in mind for himself, _but could he please make it as strong as possible?_ — all delivered in monotonous voice with perfect pauses in between words, topped with another weary smile that looks positively less scary.

With a nod and a click of the door Tetsu leaves, and as soon as he does Nero is practically hissing at Gara, and not that he does it too often.

“What was this about?” He demands first, and is more than pleased that he doesn’t have to clarify what _this_ is with anything more than a nod.

“He fell asleep, and I didn’t want him to catch a cold,” Gara delivers slowly, his words coming out in the form of an irritated whisper. 

“Oh,” Nero observes, “Oh. You could have used his coat. It’s at least longer.”

“I don’t think he would appreciate me touching his things.”

This is so impenetrably stupid it hurts, and Nero buries his face in the palms of his hands for a second, wondering why he even bothers in the first place. Thankfully, Gara doesn’t see it, or chooses to ignore it, so he continues, unable to stop now, 

“So let me get this straight: he fell asleep, so you covered him with you jacket.” 

No response from Gara, which means this is true. An amused whistle escapes Nero’s lips. “Wow. You know, that’s a really cheap move.”

And cheesy. And, considering Gara, even creepy. But Nero doesn’t point it out loud: he’s not even sure he actually believes it.

“I’m not taking relationship advice from you,” Gara snaps, turning his back at Nero: the talk is over. It lasted more than it should have anyway, but Nero has to have the last word in this.

“Well maybe it’s time you did,” he mutters — and hopes that Tetsu is back soon with the promised coffee that has mystic powers of making if not a relatively normal then at least a tolerable person out of Gara on days like this; this is going to be a long, long day, and it hasn’t even started yet.

—

It’s close to afternoon again when they take another break, one of many this day, and Gara allows himself to look at Tetsu without throbbing guilt and thinks that he has somehow become his anchor; it is almost embarrassing and it makes no sense, but when he tries to reconstruct the previous night all he can think of is how for the first time in his past few years he was glad that someone was there with him — for him — so that he didn’t need to go through it alone.

When he closes his eyes he is in the dark again, and all he can remember is how he mindlessly reached out to hold Tetsu’s hand and how pleasantly real it felt, and how the very moment their fingers locked he thought that maybe — just maybe — there was a chance that he was gonna make it.

When he glances at the clock it’s almost five, and he feels the sickening waves of nausea rising again. He sits in the corner, listening to the slow and considerate conversation that goes on around him, taking no part in it, cupping the already cold paper cup of coffee Tetsu has brought him yet again, which feels so nice, because really, he didn’t even ask for it. Tetsu’s name rings a bell in Gara’s head again, as if he were a bloody Pavlov’s dog, and before he knows it his eyes are trained on the unsuspecting bassist — who, in fact, turns out to be not as unsuspecting as he thought, because under Gara’s gaze he flinches, and he looks Gara straight in the eye, too, the intensity of his glare both perfect and unbearable. Gara shrugs off the silent question in Tetsu’s eyes, and the latter reluctantly shrugs, too, and turns away. 

His coffee is still cold and the night is still coming, but with a twisted pleasure he thinks that this night is bound to be better, for he has something to hold on to when the darkest hour falls, even if it’s but a memory and not even a promise.

And to hell with that, maybe he has to consider taking that relationship advice Nero is so eager to give him. Or — _no, no, no bloody way_ he’s doing that, ever, but it’s as close to a joke as he gets now, and it feels kind of good, too. Maybe someday he’ll tell Tetsu about it, and they will have a good and healthy laugh.

Except no. Not in the fucking hell.

—

When he goes for a smoke mere fifteen minutes later, Nero trails after him, and Gara braces himself for the questions he’s going to throw at him.

“So,” Nero eyes him intently in the semi-darkness of the clouded smoking room, but Gara doesn’t go through the trouble of looking back at him, “What about Tetsu?”

“What about him?” Gara echoes, finally stealing a glance of the drummer next to him, playing with his lighter that’s seen better times.

“Oh, quit it,” he stops, catching the lighter in mid-air, “Don’t you even think of giving me this. I’ve seen you two. And I’m getting tired of it. You’re counter-productive.”

Gara flinches: that hurt, but he’s not eager to tell Nero that it’s not the reason he’s counter-productive (which he is not). He doesn’t want to fill Nero in on his night terrors: the reason the drummer has already come up with is bad enough, and if he tries to dispel it, it will only make it worse. And he doesn’t owe Nero anything, so he chooses to take another drag on his cigarette, patiently listening to him going on.

“You know, you could just talk to him. At least once. You aren’t going to die from it, I promise,” Nero tries to joke, but it doesn’t turn out good. “Okay, I got it. If both of you resent the ways of the normal people that much, text him. Write him a letter. By God, do something. _Anything._ No one is going to judge you, if that’s what you fear. And if he rejects you, I’m going to choke him with my own hands, you can trust me on that.”

He chuckles, pleased with himself, but Gara is still silent, and his cigarette smolders, unattended: he appreciates the effort, but fails to see what Nero is trying to achieve here.

“This isn’t one of your songs. Life doesn’t work like this. Not always. Almost not at all.”

Nero takes a deep drag, draining his cigarette all down to the filter; he’s not looking at Gara anymore, and Gara follows his gaze — they let the seconds flow without letting them know they’re here to witness it, watching the smoke dissolve in the darkness that lurks beneath the ceiling.

And then Gara speaks, and surprises himself with the sound of his own voice.

“I don’t deserve him. And he doesn’t deserve me. For opposite reasons, though.”

Nero rolls his eyes. “You should really think less. And if you don’t get together soon, you’ll have to find another drummer, for I’d rather hang myself than actually be your goth fairy godmother,” he’s smiling — a good-hearted joke, for he’s about as much a fairy godmother as a ballerina, and he’ll never leave, but it’s partly true, and they both know it. “Think about it,” he drops before slipping back inside, summoned by the means of Kenichi’s call, and with that Gara is left, again, alone.

—

They urge him home, telling him to take a good rest before stepping into the studio again, and that should be no earlier than two days from now — they have to finish working on the music, and there’s nothing he can do to help them with it. At least that’s what they tell him, the four of them, and he has to surrender — he’d surrender to anything by the point when Yuu is telling him everything is going to be all right. He trusts Yuu, and before he leaves he makes them promise that they’ll call him if anything comes up, but knows that they won’t, and it still sounds like a terrible idea, even though he can’t deny the fact that it does make some sense.

Maybe he really needs to take a break from it all, he thinks, wrapping himself with black leather to face the last rays of feeble daylight; at the door he turns back to them, waits until Tetsu’s eyes lock on his, and tells him, unsure of the message he wants to get through,

“Don’t forget your phone tonight.”

—

He falls asleep and dreams of endless staircases and lost cities with their gray skylines ruined and forgotten; when he wakes up it’s dark, and he doesn’t want to know if it’s still dark or already. He takes a shower, makes himself tea, but resents the thought of food — instead, he spreads paper on the floor of his room and not as much writes as paints his soulless nightmares on it, listening to the music of the noize his brush makes with each stroke. He doesn’t feel human, doesn’t feel anything, entranced with the sure characters that flow from under the calligraphic brush; for the rest of the world he doesn’t exist, and he lets nothing get to him for the time being — there is nothing that can disturb him in this perfect stillness until a persistent, revolting sound of the doorbell pierces the silence that comforts him so.

Gara closes his eyes and lets the hideous sound fill the room, again and again, before he cannot pretend he hasn’t heard it anymore, for it turns into a knocking on his poor door and a voice telling him that he knows he’s there, making him get up and answer it against his will.

“Nero sent you, didn’t he?” He asks Tetsu before he can tell him something first, and thinks of a dozen excuses to turn him away if it’s true; anger gets hold of him, for these people have no right to pry into his life like they know better, not even Tetsu, even looking so unnecessarily good in his fine detective chic clothes.

“No,” Tetsu says, bewilderment in his eyes true and unrehearsed, and Gara’s guard is down again in a heartbeat, “Why would he?” He takes a pause marked by his unsure smile as he watches Gara, and then allows, “I just wanted to check up on you. Thought you might use my company again.”

The nonchalantness in his voice is a bit unnatural, speaks of his indecision, but it’s only endearing, and Gara steps aside, making room for him to enter, which doesn’t impress Tetsu as much as the vocalist thought it would, for he only shakes his head, “Let’s go out tonight? I know it’s late, but I also know a nice jazz bar, and if we set off now, we’ll catch the best of their band.”

Gara shrugs; he doesn’t really want to be anywhere near people, doesn’t want any music, but he can’t go back to his own words now, with the mood gone away and Tetsu standing before him with the air of concealed expectation about him, so he wordlessly flings on his jacket over his old washed-out shirt that was once fashionable, but now almost falls off one of his shoulders, gets his keys, and lets Tetsu lead him on into the night.

They do not make it to the bar, though — at least not to the bar that Tetsu had in mind, turn into a greasy joint somewhere halfway, where it is dark and fairly quiet. In favor of Tetsu’s remarkable efforts Gara even forces some food down, and it turns out to be the best he’s eaten lately, which reminds him that he hasn’t eaten anything for far too long, and Tetsu chuckles lightly, watching him.

He doesn’t ask any questions, and Gara doesn’t even sense that he wants to, lets him talk about what they’ve done while he was away, and a day feels like eternity. 

“I’ve written something you should hear,” he tells Tetsu in turn, thinking of his poetry scattered on the floor of his living room, and he means it; he wants to show him everything, and he wants to do it this very moment, but they are in the middle of nowhere, and the rules are against it, so they order another round of food, wash it down with a teasing dose of bitter alcohol, and stay where they are.

“It’s empty there without you,” Tetsu tells him when they’re at Gara’s door again, two hours shy of daybreak, and leaves him at it before Gara can even thank him for the night.

—

“You shall stop doing this to him,” Nero tells him, his words harsh but crawly, and he sounds more tired than concerned.

He and Gara are in the control room, watching the rest of the band through the thick glass; almost two weeks have passed since their previous conversation like this, but nothing has really changed: Gara’s nights were still tedious and weary, and the fact that Tetsu has accompanied him through them more than once wasn’t doing him any good. He preferred it when his heart ached from being far from him and alone, for he has learned to live with it; being so close to him helped pass the time, but each and every word they exchanged and every gesture Tetsu made were like daggers stabbing him in the ugly, bloody mess his heart has once been. He made Gara’s nights better by turning his days into nightmares instead, and Gara envied Tetsu’s seemingly blissful ignorance which made him want to hurt him, too, and drive him away so he won’t be able to hurt him more.

And out of all days possible Nero had to choose the worst: the day after another of their nights out when they walked it out all the way to dawn, after Gara’s painful whisper of _I don’t want to go home tonight,_ after Tetsu’s hand on his shoulder, a simple touch that turned into a half-hug, after he let himself relax into it and his thoughts of the warmest and the darkest things almost turned into whispers — he’s still unsure if he’s let them out, if it was just a trick of the wind or him telling Tetsu he wanted him around for more than that — after Tetsu has left him, again, after a cup of the strongest coffee he made for him when they found their way back into Gara’s apartment — after he brushed the back of his hand against Gara’s cheek, telling him that they will talk later.

They haven’t talked, not at all, and Gara hates his helpless whimpering — but loves the way it makes his voice sound when he sings it all out; his soul is a desolation row, a desert burnt out by the merciless sun, and the only reason he doesn’t lament it is that he is burnt out, too, and he’s tired of waiting.

“I’m not doing anything to him. He’s doing it to himself,” he shoots back at Nero, his arms folded, “Why are you lecturing me anyway? Talk to him if you want. I didn’t chain him to myself; he chose to stay. He can take care of himself.”

 _Yeah, but he would choose taking care of you over anything,_ Nero wants to say, but doubts it will achieve anything; he is fairly certain that Gara is aware of it, too, and dreads that he’s lured Tetsu into his world on purpose. If he didn’t know them both so well he could have thought that it was cold calculation on Gara’s part, his twisted desire to find out just _what if,_ but it could never be true. As much as he was concerned, Gara tried to keep others away from his self-inflicted misery, and Tetsu most of them all, but he was also true about one thing: Tetsu did it all to himself, for Gara’s obsessive driving away anyone who was around him was really a cry for help, even if he himself didn’t realize it, and Tetsu’s all but masochistic sacrifice was an offering and an invitation, something that Gara couldn’t resist if it were so laboriously being placed in front of him for so long. Where exactly Tetsu has acquired this ridiculously selfless drive to share his life with someone like Gara without losing himself or, if it came to it, his dignity, was among the things about him that Nero was better off not knowing: he offered himself to Gara with enviable devotion, a gift Gara wouldn’t be able to refuse even if he wanted to, because his patience only goes this far. 

Knowing Tetsu, he wasn’t much of a lifesaver himself, but he was willing to try, even if his previous failures proved his efforts futile; knowing Tetsu, he probably believed that he could be _the one_ for Gara, and for the sake of all of them Nero hoped that it would turn out to be true soon: so far he has succeeded only in sporting the look of the walking dead almost every morning, and Gara was too lost in whatever he imagined himself to even see that — or catch the meaning of it.

“Your self-loathing doesn’t suit him,” the drummer finally says, his sourness showing in his wiping his glasses clean with too much care before putting them on again; it was a feeble statement, no matter how true, and Gara could only shrug it off once more. “And your inability to notice other people’s feelings starts to really piss me off. You two do deserve each other, though. Let’s get back to work.”

—

Gara is the first to leave that evening, escaping more pointless, excruciating conversations, before Tetsu can seek him out; he still doesn’t know what to say to him, he just wants these weeks of their circling each other to amount to something, anything, and the weight of words unsaid to disappear, for he knows that otherwise it will be the end of him — Gara will be the end of him, anyway, and he doesn’t want to go down without trying.

He tries to imagine what a romantic relationship with him will look like, and though its very idea is borderline crazy, it pleases him somehow. He waits until it’s dark again, until it’s the time he’s been coming to Gara lately, and he waits the pointless, empty hours out in a bar, the one he’s never taken him to after all, listening to the flow of distorted music without interest, fingering the small piece of paper Gara has slipped into the pocket of his coat while he wasn’t looking, the one that says only _I will leave the door open tonight._ He waits for _tonight_ to manifest, dreading it and welcoming it with shots of alcohol to give him strength, something that he’s been doing a bit too much lately.

When he stumbles along the all too familiar road to Gara’s place it’s almost midnight, and his head is pleasantly empty and swimming; he’s smiling for no reason other than his own stupidity, but that smile disappears the moment he touches the door, and it opens without a sound into the equally soundless apartment, trying to keep his own noise to the minimum, which is not easy to do, and he can’t help cursing when he strikes a wall with his shoulder on his way to the living room. 

It is lit only by the means of milky moonlight and reflections of yellow street lamps, and the mixed light casts shadows suitable for old American comic books; Gara is but another shadow among many, almost invisible at first, until he moves, bobbing his head slightly, as if telling him that he has almost given up on waiting, and Tetsu smiles again, though he doesn’t know at what; the darkness hides Gara’s bones, his shirt nothing but another of its many cloaks. It hides his features, too, and a ghost of a tired smile that he gives Tetsu in return; the moment is pure and flawless — it takes them further down the black river, and they just _are,_ together in it, allowing something else speak for them but words — just like they always have, just the way it is meant to be for their kin.

And just the second Tetsu moves closer to him with his wary steps, Gara’s phone calls, bringing eccentric sounds and violent light into the room and the silence that were meant to be impenetrable; Tetsu freezes again while Gara takes it in his hands, and the sickening bluish glow lights up the air about him. 

“It’s Kyo,” he tells him, and Tetsu cannot suppress a pained laugh — of course it’s Kyo, of course it is, and he retreats back to the wall and slides down it to the floor, watching Gara as he closes the lid of his phone, killing the call without answering.

“Aren’t you gonna get that?” He asks without curiosity, looking upon Gara from the floor, watching him get close to him and then kneel before him with a whispered _No,_ and Tetsu cannot produce a single sound anymore, unable even to move, and his breathing slows as Gara reaches out his hand to touch him, the tips of his fingers coming lightly in touch with his skin.

He flinches; submission has never really been his thing, but with Gara it’s only natural, pure, and as he crawls closer to him, he can only look at him, unblinking, enduring the torture of waiting as a stoic soldier. They both know what’s going to happen, and the prolonged moments of not-acting are a sweet agony; when Gara’s shaky hand closes on his wrist he gasps for breath, and the sensation of the touch is almost unbelievable. He wants to think of something pretty, of something to hold on to — something to keep him human, but the endless hours of deliberate sleep-deprivation take the best of him, and he shudders again when Gara’s lips brush lightly against his neck; for all he knows he could have fallen dead right at the spot and not know it still.

“Is this the reason you’ve come?” Gara asks him between kisses too soft, each of his words the sharpest sword cutting off his senses — and he never knew he had so many. “Did you come for this?” It could have been mockery if they weren’t who they are — and if it weren’t so absolute in its excellence.

 _No,_ Tetsu struggles to say, _Not exactly,_ but he likes the bonus. When he tries to speak his own words turn into marble, scattered around the floor; he thinks that if he puts his hand down he might slip, except there’s nothing much on his mind, and while he tries to determine if it’s even worth the effort of closing his eyes Gara’s lips lock on his. The facade of a gentle flutter fades away to reveal the vicious ferocity of a predator, and the only thought still trapped in Tetsu’s head is a _Yes_. A moan he cannot suppress, and he’s ashamed for it, eager to please Gara even in this state of being reduced to ringing nothingness, but oh, Gara is pleased: his lips twitch, and he grins into their hasty kiss — hasty if only on Tetsu’s part, grabbing his shirt and pulling him even closer, closer, _please-kiss-me-more-kiss-me-again,_ and his over-eagerness grants Gara with a bite or two — at first because he’s clumsy, then out of the perverted bliss the metallic taste of blood gives him.

Gara’s hands are soft to the touch, and when he gets him out of his coat and traces the line on Tetsu’s skin just above his jeans, Tetsu doesn’t have a body anymore — he’s a bundle of nerves, the gentlest machine, and before he knows it Gara yanks him forward, away from the solid wall and onto the floor with power uncanny and coming seemingly out of nowhere, all in silence but for Tetsu’s uneven breathing and Gara’s unsteady chuckles that do not sound good at all.

It’s an act of need, almost devoid of conventional eroticism, perfect in its own sense; a phone call destroys their rhythm again, adds to the cacophony of sounds that never existed. When it goes unanswered it switches to the voice mail, and Kyo’s words of worried nonsense mingle with Gara’s shady whisper of _Go_ as he drags Tetsu further into the bedroom, away from the voice that he hates with a passion almost close to what he feels towards Gara, his moronic envy hugely misplaced. 

When the flat falls silent again Tetsu doesn’t know where he is anymore, his head spinning, muscles tight, his erection not only evident but painful, confessions reduced to absurdities and rendered irrelevant. When Gara touches him he sees stars, and the sound of the vocalist’s voice alone could make him come, but Gara’s asking him something, lingering, torturing him again, and Tetsu shrugs it off — _whatever, just be with me, I’m yours, what more do you want of me,_ but he finds the strength to half-sit up, hating himself for it as much as he loves Gara for everything he is. 

The windows bleed moonlight onto Gara’s ashen skin while he struggles with his clothes, Tetsu’s hand running over his torso and his hair, his kisses covering his bites that are bound to turn into bruises overnight — and the night itself is for once shying away, sunrise at its heels, not the first in Tetsu’s life to be met with Gara’s name on his lips, but the first to be met with it screamed from the top of his lungs, after the first night adorned with his own name being dropped in so many variations, in hoarse, broken whispers that he loves so much and in lustful moans. When the dawn comes, he drags a blanket from the tatami that’s too far away from them to even think of relocating — the blanket to hide Gara from the sun, his limp body huddled in his arms that were meant to save him from his demons.

“I could get used to it,” he utters half-jokingly, still struggling to stay awake.

“You probably should,” comes the answer, Gara’s voice fading softly as he drifts off from all kinds of exhaustion, and Tetsu’s words of love that he dreaded so much don’t quite reach him — but there will be time when they wake up again, just like there will be more nights to come.

—

“Why didn’t you leave?” Gara asks first thing in the morning, and Tetsu shrugs in response before leaving for the kitchen, his bare feet sounding funny in the apartment laced with morning light and adorned with silence.

“Why didn’t you leave?” He tries again, louder now, gathering himself up from the tatami and threading after his apparent guest.

He doesn’t sound annoyed or angry, like he’s expected Tetsu to leave and he didn’t, he just... _asks_ , sounding for once genuinely interested and hurt.

He asks, but Tetsu doesn’t answer still, going about his kitchen looking for something that might not even be there. Gara watches him and waits, never bothering with asking the same question for the third time in a row, and finally Tetsu breaks, steadying himself against the counter with those long arms that he has. He sighs, and then cautiously throws a sidelong glance at Gara, both unsure and too tired of life to not speak.

The night has passed, and all that it’s left is uneasiness that shouldn’t by all means be there, for it is something he thought they have gotten rid of for good. 

“Because I didn’t want to,” his words come out in a whisper, not the way he intended them to at all, but it seems like Gara’s place itself doesn’t let him raise his voice, keeping all sounds at minimum. “I wanted to stay and make sure you’re all right when you wake up and make you coffee when you do. Maybe to reassure myself that I am still perfectly sane. But mostly because of you and your half-smile that you give me when I get you coffee, regardless of the time I do. Because I wanted you to not have a shitty morning for once. And not to have a shitty morning myself, for that matter, because since you haven’t been getting any sleep I haven’t, too, for I never know if you’ll even be alive when morning comes anymore. Because I want you to stay alive, and yes, fuck it, I want you, too, all of you, and for the sake of whatever you hold dear, please say anything, because I can’t stop now and if you don’t, it’s only going to get worse, since I’m really tired of–” his breath finally catches in his throat as he has to inhale in order to keep on living, and thank God he does because he almost says _of your shit,_ and it isn’t even true. He is suddenly too aware of everything that is around him, especially Gara, and how he can never look him in the eye again, because his senseless rant is clearly more embarrassing than the fact that they had sex last night.

“Okay,” he sighs a sigh of an old man, still refusing to look at the cause of his outburst, “I’m sorry, I am really sorry, and I am going to leave now, so could you please just forget all of this? Please?” He pleads, shamelessly, still talking to the counter instead of Gara, and when there is no response in the next fifteen seconds Tetsu decides that the most sensible thing he can do now is actually leave if that’s what Gara wants, so he practically bounces himself off the counter and turns and then almost jumps, for Gara is standing next to him, blocking his path, and their proximity makes him shiver.

“Please don’t,” the other man whispers, his voice rich with half-tones and implications and completely devoid of any intonation at the same time. It makes no sense; Tetsu has clearly made a fool of himself here, being driven over the edge and delivering his stupid melodramatic speech that came out of nowhere and contained more words than either of them was comfortable with, and so Gara has every right to want him out of the picture, at least for now.

“I’m not suicidal,” Gara states instead, firmly but somehow apologetically, and the things it does to Tetsu are unbelievable in their utter ridiculousness. “And I really want your coffee, so please go on with that, too.”

And then Gara reaches out and strokes his arm where the sleeve of his T-shirt ends, and smiles, and says, in the smallest of voices, one that’s barely even there and is still like a thunder on a quiet summer night,

“Tetsu... please don’t leave.” The stroke turns into a grip, and they lock their eyes for the first time since forever, _“ever again.”_

“I won’t,” Tetsu promises, his words falling silent as he breathes out, and then he wraps his arm around Gara’s waist and kisses him, like it’s a beautifully normal thing to do for two deeply disturbed men with mental issues on a morning in a kitchen flooded with colorless autumn light, because apparently it’s something he can do now, and, judging from the way Gara’s own arms entwine around his neck, it is something they are going to carry on with — he just hopes that the old-fashioned kettle won’t boil away, and they will not be late to the studio today, even though that is the most probable outcome.

_We're on the healing path; we're on a roller coaster ride that could never turn back;  
And if you love me, and if you really try  
to make the seconds count, then we can close our eyes_


End file.
